Fortification & alimentation.

When passing a door-post, watch as you walk on, inspect as you enter.

It's uncertain where enemies lurk or crouch in a dark corner.

- Hávamál

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Göteborg (Gothenburg) is a purpose-built city, its current incarnation developed from the Swedish kingdom's fourth and ultimately successful attempt to establish a presence on the North Sea coast. Having clawed possession of the Göta river estuary at Rivö fjord by the middle of the 13th century, the Swedes set about constructing a port to not only make their presence permanent, but also detract trade from the Danish and Norwegian settlements previously dominating the coast. The first Swedish attempts either failed to draw enough visitors, or were so successful the dominant Danes couldn't help but raid and burn them to the ground.

Yet by the time king Gustav II Adolf's Göteborg (as it became known) was completed at the beginning of the 18th century, it was one of the strongest fortified cities in Northern Europe. However, little of its once-impressive fortifications remain, as the winds of war not only shifted away from the city, but also because advances in martial technology and strategy rendered its stationary fortifications obsolete. The majority of the city's defences were torn down at the beginning of the 19th century — leaving only the armoury, Kronhuset (the "Crown's House", one of Göteborg's oldest brick buildings, erected 1643-1655), a single bastion, most of the moat, and two fortified sconces constructed on hills once overlooking the city.

The oldest sconce, Kronan ("the Crown"), erected between 1678 and 1689 on Rysåsen ("Ryd's Hill"), was originally connected to the walled city by a caponier, and has been topped by a gilded copper crown since 1697. Having lost its military importance by the early 19th century, it served first as a prison, later a shelter for the homeless, before being purchased by the city from the state in 1925. For nearly a century, between 1904 and 2004, the sconce housed a military museum (now mothballed) before being turned into a private function hall. As the last Danish attack on Göteborg took place in 1643, before any of the currently remaining defenses were even constructed, neither Kronan or any of the other fortifications were ever tested in battle.

Though the second sconce, Västgöta Lejon (commonly Lejonet, "the Lion"), was begun at the same time as Kronan, it wasn't completed until 1699 — at which point it became apparent that, although built on the strategically important Gullberget ("Gull's Hill"), it could quite easily be bombarded from other nearby hills. Hence, the dud sconce mainly found use as a warehouse for gunpowder made in an adjacent factory. Yet it remained a military installation until 1942, eventually becoming (after restoration work in the early 1970s) the private hall of Götiska Förbundet ("the Geathic Society", a social club of national romantics). The crowned lion brandishing a sword and shield currently crowning the sconce is an 1893 reinterpretation of an earlier original.

The sole remaining bastion, officially named Carolus XI Rex (the Latin rendition of "King Karl XI") but commonly known as Carolus Rex, is the last standing reminder of the city's once imposing fortified wall, which gradually replaced earlier earthen fortifications. One of thirteen such polygonal bulwarks projecting out from the wall, Carolus Rex wasn't completed until 1731 — over a century after the city's official founder, Gustav II Adolf (1594 – 1632), had (as the story goes) stood on the hill the bastion now occupies, and pointed toward the site where he desired the new city to be constructed.

Though a statue supposedly depicting the event has stood in what once was Stora Torget ("the Great Square", now Gustaf Adolfs Torg, "Gustaf Adolf's Square") since 1854, the rapacious monarch founded no fewer then fifteen cities throughout his realm. Hence any sense of distinctness Gothenburgers may derive from their city's origin should be tempered by the fact that statues of Gustav II Adolf can be found in numerous other places, (clearly) equally proud of such royal distinction. Never mind that Göteborg, despite receiving city privileges from its founder as early as 1621, was largely constructed during the reigns of his successors.

However, Gothenburgers are likely unique in continuing to commemorate Gustav II Adolf's demise by stuffing their faces with pastry each November, on the very day the king was killed in the Thirty Years' War. For a while a battle also raged between the city's most prominent confectionary families, the Arnholts and the Bräutigams, as to whom had first devised the infamous pastry, and initiated the tradition. (Having provided Göteborg's inhabitants with marzipan and pastries since 1870, the current, fifth generation of Bräutigams appear to have won through sheer longevity.)

The late 19th century origin of the tradition is now as shrouded in fog as the king himself was said to have been the day he got shot. Nevertheless, the novelty caught on, and by the early 1950s the "Gustav Adolf Pastry" could be bought in 43 Swedish cities and towns each November 6th, in sixteen different varieties in Göteborg alone. Currently the most common incarnation is a variant of the classic Swedish Princess cake, topped with a relief of the king's head in chocolate. Though vaguely macabre, the notion of Göteborg's pastry chefs striking coin from a king's misfortune is largely consistent with the city's tradition of having been founded for militant trade.

The Count's Castle.

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Practically at the centre of Gent stands what for all intents and purposes is a medieval castle: the Gravensteen ("Count's Castle"). The original structure was constructed in 1180, on a site by the river Leie (Lys) that fortified structures had occupied since the 9th century. Yet whether the fairytale building that can be seen and visited here today in any way resembles the original is hotly debated, mainly due to the extensive — some claim "imaginative" — restoration undertaken by the city of Gent in the late 1800s.

Having been constructed by the order of the then Count of Flanders, Philip I (1142 — 1191), the original Gravensteen was modelled on the crusader forts the Count had encountered during the fiasco later known as the Second Crusade. The castle then served as the seat of the Counts of Flanders until formally abandoned in the 14th century, though they rarely spent much time there to begin with, possessing many other castles and houses between which they frequently travelled.

In 1353 the castle housed the city Mint, between 1407 and 1778 the Raad van Vlaanderen (the Council of Flanders, the regions highest legal college) and a prison, before finally being turned into a cotton mill in 1807 — likely the first example of industrial repurposing of any building in Gent. New buildings were erected along the former castle's crumbling walls, parts of which were even recycled as building material for new structures. Inescapably, the decaying Gravensteen became a symbol of abusive power, feudal oppression, horrendous incarceration, and torturous inquisition.

Yet despite calls for its removal, it survived and, beginning in 1894, was subjected to a "romanticizing" restoration, considerably altering the castle to suit 19th century ideas of what the Middle Ages should look like. (Though a decent slice of the real thing can be seen in the torture museum housed in the castle since 2002.) However, as the only remaining medieval castle in Flanders, with a virtually intact defense system, the Gravensteen is among the most visited sites in Gent — if one of the scientifically least examined ones, with no serious archeological research conducted on the structure prior to the 1950s.

The castle is said to have succumbed to invaders only once, in November 1949, when students incensed by the rising price of beer (and the change of policemen's caps from white to blue making them indistinguishable from mailmen and taxi drivers) entered and occupied the Gravensteen. Alas, their siege — now notorious as the Slag om het Gravensteen ("The Battle of the Count's Castle") — proved unfruitful, with prices for the coveted beverages continuing to climb even as the defeated (and presumably quite thirsty) scholars filed out of the Count's old keep. Like so many disillusioned crusaders before them.

(More images of the castle.)

Abbey of St Bavo.

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The ruins of the former Sint-Baafsabdij (Abbey of St Bavo) are an oasis. They rest practically in the middle of Gent, mere minutes away from the current Sint-Baafskathedraal (St Bavo Cathedral), and literally next door to the confluence of the river Schelde (Escaut) and its tributary, the Leie (Lys). The fork of these two rivers is believed by many to be not only the first site settled in the area, but also the origin of the city’s older name, Ganda, derived from the Celtic word for confluence. The site certainly is among the first where Christianity found a foothold in Flanders.

Sometime around 629, the Frankish missionary Amand (c. 584 – 675) arrived here on his first attempt to baptize the local "pagans", who did what most people accused by a total stranger of not "living right" would do, (allegedly) tossing the proselytizing bishop back into the river that had brought him hither. Undaunted, Amand performed the "miracle" of resuscitating a hanged criminal, which so impressed the locals to abandon their previous beliefs they not only demanded to be baptized, but immediately set about destroying their former places of worship.

Amand went on to found not only the Sint-Baafsabdij, but also the Sint-Pietersabdij (Abbey of St Peter), together with his disciple Bavo (622 – 659) — formerly a nobleman known as Allowin of Hesbaye (Haspengouw). A tearaway slacker in his youth, Bavo "atoned" for his loutish years by becoming a monk and disseminating his wealth. Venerated as a saint upon his death, the abbey where he died was renamed after him in the ninth century. Not long after that, Sint-Baafs was sacked by Norsemen on one of their first murderous vikings in the area.

Setting up camp in Sint-Baafs during the winter of 879-880, the Norsemen went on to pillage Sint-Pieters as well. Further fortification of the sites, and fervent shipbuilding in a nearby wharf, didn't discourage additional raids, and by 883 the Norsemen had effectively razed both abbeys to the ground: practically wiping the emerging settlement of Gent off the map. However, Sint-Baafs was re-erected in the tenth century under the watchful eye of Arnulf the Great (c. 890 – 965), third Count of Flanders, and continued to flourish throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Sint-Baafs last period of prosperity began at the turn of the fifteenth century, having been renovated and redecorated under abbot Raphaël de Mercatel (1437 – 1508). By that time, the population of Gent had reached some 65,000 inhabitants, supposedly making it the second largest city in Europe after Paris. However, some 900 years after it was founded the abbey's end was nigh: in 1539, Emperor Charles V decided to personally strike down the revolt brewing in the city — which his sister, Queen Mary of Hungary, had failed to quell — over the tax increases being squeezed out of its inhabitants to fund the Emperor's various wars.

Taking the revolt as a personal affront, Gent being Charles' city of birth, the Emperor had large parts of the original abbey buildings and its impressive Romanesque church — the very place Charles had himself been baptized — demolished, in order to make way for what would become infamously known as the Spanjaardkasteel (Spanish Castle). Constructed for the sole purpose of besieging and maintaining control of the rebellious city, Charles' Italian-style citadel was large enough for a garrison of 2,500 men. Completed in 1545, the citadel was itself demolished between 1827 and 1834, while what remained of the once prominent abbey was retained as ruins. In 1887, when the Belgian state handed the site over to the city of Gent, the city's lapidarium was installed there.

In 2007, a neighbourhood organisation — Buren van de abdij (Neighbours of the Abbey) — were granted permission by the city to open the closed off ruins to the public once a week, with volunteers guiding tours, exhibitions, and hosting concerts each Sunday between April and November. Today, five metre high hornbeams evoke the pillars of the demolished church, while a concrete podium marks the place where its altar once stood, effectively a multipurpose outdoor stage in a lush park setting. The ruins and remains of the abbey are also home to some 150 different species of wild plants, making the site quite unique among Europe's urban parks.

(More images of the ruined Abbey of St Bavo.)